After last year's domination by The Artist, and the triumph for The King's Speech in 2011, US cinema reasserted itself with a vengeance in the 2013 Oscar race, as the nominations for this year's Academy awards were announced.

The Steven Spielberg-directed biopic Lincoln led the nominations count, with 12, including nods for best picture, best director, and best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, while the 20th Century Fox-produced Life of Pi ran second with 11, and the David O Russell romcom Silver Linings Playbook upset the formbook by scoring a surprise eight.

British hopes, largely invested in Les Misérables, received solid if not spectacular encouragement, as the Tom Hooper-directed musical received eight nominations, including best picture and best actor for Hugh Jackman.

The much-talked-up surge for the record-breaking James Bond film Skyfall failed to materialise, as no major award nomination was forthcoming – though the 007 film did receive five nods, including one for Adele's theme song.

However, the Leo Tolstoy adaptation Anna Karenina, like Les Misérables produced by British outfit Working Title, garnered a surprise four. The studio's co-chairs Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan professed themselves "really proud" and said it was a "great start to the year".

Another unexpected nod went to The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, the British-produced animation from Wallace and Gromit studio Aardman, which did not make the shortlist for the Baftas.

Oscar host Seth Macfarlane and Amazing Spider-Man actor Emma Stone announced the nominations in a ceremony that began at 5.30am local time at the Dolby theatre in Los Angeles. Macfarlane, who might have been hoping for a clutch of nominations for his successful directing debut Ted, had to be content with a best original song nod for Everybody Needs a Best Friend for which he wrote the lyrics. But he proved a funny and irreverent addition to the Oscar family, comparing himself to Donny Osmond, and telling the best supporting actress nominees: "Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein."

Weinstein, who is renowned as a master Oscar campaigner, and who piloted The Artist to success last year, said he was "blown away" by the nominations for his films, and he will no doubt be content with the result for Silver Linings, but less so for two others : Quentin Tarantino's violent slavery western Django Unchained and Paul Thomas Anderson's thinly-disguised Scientology drama The Master.

Both films have attracted critical praise, but did perhaps less well than expected. Tarantino's film has done well at the box office, taking more than $110m after two weeks on release in North America, but despite early buzz, it has clocked up only five nominations – with Tarantino shut out of the best director list. With three acting nominations, The Master has secured some recognition, but none for its writer-director Anderson.

Another early frontrunner that appears to have stumbled is Zero Dark Thirty, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Bigelow, and screenwriter Mark Boal, may have been anticipating a rerun of their 2010 Oscar success with The Hurt Locker. Instead, the acrimony the film has attracted from both sides of the political spectrum – particularly in its alleged endorsement of CIA torture practices – may have proved toxic, and it received one less nomination from the Oscars than Bafta bestowed on it, with Bigelow joining Tarantino in the best director reject bin.

Conversely, the makers of two less heralded films will be delighted. Arguably the most heartwarming story of the entire awards season, the ascent of low-budget indie Beasts of the Southern Wild – via success at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals – to four Oscar nominations, including best picture, best director for Benh Zeitlin and best actress for nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis (the youngest ever in this category) is little short of miraculous.

Almost as remarkable are the five nominations for Michael Haneke's highly-charged chamber drama Amour, which is included in best picture, best director, best original screenplay and best actress (for Emmanuelle Riva) as well as the best foreign film category.

The Academy is notoriously ungenerous to non-English language films – the non-speaking Artist notwithstanding, the last properly foreign-language film to receive a best picture nod was the Clint Eastwood-directed Letters from Iwo Jima in 2007. Philip Knatchbull, chief executive of Amour's UK distributors Curzon Artificial Eye, was understandably delighted at the boost the film has been given, saying it was "fantastic news" and that through "sheer quality of film-making … it is not only a commercial victory, but also a victory for cinematic excellence."

The announcement came two weeks earlier than customary, apparently to upstage the Golden Globes, whose awards ceremony is this weekend. It also cast a long shadow over the nominations for Britain's film awards, the Baftas, which were released on Wednesday. Nevertheless, both academies have largely agreed: Lincoln is the film to beat.